Monday, February 11, 2008

I took Loco back to the vet today for them to re-check his electrolytes. The girl at the front desk told us Saturday that there would be no charge for this. Thank God, because it cost us almost $400 Saturday.

Anyway, I took Shorty with me today. The tech finally comes out to get Loco and take him back to take his blood. We wait and sit and sit and wait and the doctor comes walking out carrying Loco back to us in his crate. The doctor says, "I re-checked Loco and he has a ruptured ear drum." I almost fell on the freakin floor. I said, What? She said, "He was not only holding his head down today, but down and to the right, so I checked his ear and his ear drum has ruptured. We're mixing up some steroids for you to take home to give to him." And with that, she turns and walks back into the back.

It takes a few minutes for reality to sink in. We spent $400 in here Saturday to save Loco's life. He was seconds away from kidney failure - or that's basically what Loco's vet told us. Now you're telling me that he really had a busted ear drum and he's not going to die a slow, painful death from kidney failure?

I go up to the front desk clerk and say, I'm not really one to complain, but I have to complain on this deal. She promptly shuts me up and tells me she'll ask the vet to speak to me. In the meantime, while I'm waiting on the vet, the tech comes back out to where I'm sitting and says, "We need to get more blood from Loco." I said, "What? You have to stick him again to do tests for the busted ear drum?" She looked at me like I was insane and says, "I didn't know he had a ruptured ear drum. We have to draw more blood because the machine messed up and the blood didn't spin down right."

To make this long story as short as I possibly can, the vet said she checked Loco's ears Saturday and his ear drum was not ruptured then. His kidneys are improving. Then they charged me $50 when there was supposed to be no charge. They took $20 off that because I griped a little. Whatever. My only question is this: If Loco's ear drum busted after we left the vet, was it not the size of a freakin watermelon when the vet looked at it Saturday? It had to have been huge. If that's the case, I would have been charged $45 for an office visit and $8 for steroids, not $400 for a urinalysis, blood work, three different kinds of meds.

Why does this kind of shit always happen to me? Oh, well...live and learn, live and learn.

(If I didn't spell something right in this novel I just wrote, then sorry, but spell check has not work for weeks now on Blogger.)